Case Number 16016

PUNISHER: WAR ZONE: TWO-DISC SPECIAL EDITION

The Charge

Vengeance has a name.

Opening Statement

Everyone's favorite skull-shirted vigilante makes his third trip from the
pages of Marvel Comics to the movie screen. Heads will be blown off.

Facts of the Case

Frank Castle -- aka The Punisher (Ray Stevenson, Rome) -- is back,
singlehandedly wiping out every bad guy in New York with any weapon at his
disposal. This time, he's going after playboy gangster Billy Russoti (Dominic
West, The Wire, 28 Days), who is dropped in a glass crusher and
reemerges as the hideously scarred Jigsaw. The rest of the "plot," as
it were, involves Castle accidentally killing an FBI agent and then having to
protect his widow (Julie Benz, Bad Girls from Valley High) and her
daughter from Jigsaw and his crazy brother, Looney Bin Jim (Doug Hutchison,
The Green Mile).

The Evidence

I don't hate the 2004 version of The Punisher. I know that fairly
unpopular opinion may discredit me to many, but it's true. Yes, Thomas Jane is
badly miscast. Yes, John Travolta seems to be from another planet. Yes, it has
very little to do with the Punisher comic, despite the inclusion of
characters like Spacker Dave and Mr. Bumpo. I recognize that it fails as a
Punisher movie, but as a straight action movie you could do a lot
worse.

Now we have Lexi Alexander's Punisher: War Zone, which is Marvel
Studios' attempt to rectify their 2004 mistake and make a real Punisher
movie. I suppose on those grounds it succeeds: it's more faithful in spirit and
closer in tone to the comic book than any previous incarnation. It's also not a
very good movie.

Punisher: War Zone is not a sequel to any previous Punisher
movie, but rather a kind of "relaunch" -- basically, an admission on
Marvel's part that they had failed to get the character right the first two
times at bat (though I don't think the comics company had much to do with the
Dolph Lundgren version). It's the same thing they did last year with The
Incredible Hulk, but that redo was much more of a success. It cast talented
actors and told a fun, entertaining story that was well-paced. Punisher: War
Zone, on the other hand, does none of that.

Like the previous Thomas Jane Punisher, there are attempts to connect
the War Zone directly to the comic book. The film sees appearances by
familiar characters like tech-guy Microchip (Wayne Knight, Seinfeld),
bumbling detective Soap (Dash Mihok, The Thin Red Line) and, of course,
Jigsaw. More notably, director Alexander and her cinematographer, Steven Gainer,
have gone to great lengths to create a very comic-book look for the film; each
shot is awash in a single color, from garish neon green to road-flare red. It's
one of the more stylized Marvel comic book films (on the DVD bonus features, the
filmmakers acknowledge they were inspired by Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy),
and the movie is better -- or, at least, more interesting -- for it. Attempts
have been made to couch The Punisher in reality, so you've got to at
least give Alexander credit for going another way.

British actor Ray Stevenson picks up the mantle where Jane and Lundgren left
off. He cuts an imposing figure -- all beefy gruffness -- and certainly looks
the part, but doesn't give much of a performance beyond uttering single monotone
lines every so often. For this, I'm not entirely sure he it to blame. Stevenson
gets essentially no help from the film's recognizable supporting cast, nearly
all of whom are so cartoonishly over-the-top that they trash the movie's chances
of finding a consistent tone. The greatest offender is Dominic West as the
villainous Jigsaw, who lays on a thick-slash-terrible "Joisy" accent
and overacts his way out of his prosthetic makeup; West doesn't so much chew the
scenery as pee all over it. I sense that he was going for a Nicholson-as-Joker
style bad guy, who appears to be having a great time but is actually scary and
demented, but the resulting performance is neither fun nor scary.

If nothing else, Punisher: War Zone almost singlehandedly makes the
argument that it's officially impossible to get an NC-17 rating for violence. In
this R-rated movie, we see an old woman with half her head taken off; a man
dismembered with an axe (which leads to one of the film's most unintentionally
hilarious lines: "I'm bleedin' out."), a guy dropped into and ground
up in a glass crusher, and a guy being eviscerated and having his kidneys eaten
while he watches. I lost count of the head traumas, but it's safe to say that
more skulls are blasted and blown off than in a zombie film. Heads explode,
faces are caved in with fists and shot off -- and that's just the work of the
movie's hero. The movie is violence porn, draggy and amateurish during dialogue
scenes but finally coming alive whenever it's time to crank up the carnage. In a
way, that alone makes it almost worth checking out (and many viewers will be
seeing it just for that reason), but the rest of the movie is so sloppily
written and bizarrely acted that War Zone can't even work as B-movie
sleaze.

Lionsgate has put together a decent package for the Punisher: War
Zone 2-disc "special edition" (a single disc version, minus some
extras and the digital copy, is also available). The film is presented in a
2.35:1 widescreen transfer, enhanced for 16x9 playback. Seeing as how the visual
design is the movie's strongest suit, the disc does an excellent job of showing
if off; though there is the occasional fuzziness, it's deliberate and part of
the aesthetic. The striking neon color palette consistently pops and contrast
with the deep blacks that fill out every frame. It's a very good-looking movie.
And, as with any action movie worth its weight it bullets, the 5.1 audio track
is rousing when it comes to firefights and explosions (dig that meth addict
getting blown up mid air), but still does a fine job of handling the
dialogue.

Included on the first disc is a commentary track by director/kickboxer Lexi
Alexander and director of photography Steve Gainer, whose participation makes a
lot of sense given how much investment was made into the look of the movie.
Their talk is pretty dry, covering technical details, how certain shots were
achieved and what it was like shooting in various Canadian locations. Also
included is a series of production and making-of featurettes: "Training to
Become the Punisher," "The Making of Punisher: War Zone,"
"Creating the Look of Punisher: War Zone," "Meet
Jigsaw" and "Weapons of the Punisher." Again, most are on the
technical side and don't delve that deeply into what's being done differently
this time or the history of the comic book character (which the best Marvel DVDs
often contain). More than once, though, cast and crew do speak about how
important it was for them to be totally faithful to the comic book. That kind of
talk can only lead to trouble -- particularly when you come up short.

Rounding out the bonus material is the movie's theatrical trailer, a handful
of bonus trailers and a second disc containing a digital copy of the film.

Closing Statement

There are several things to like about Punisher: War Zone. The
photography and production design are excellent, and I appreciate the fact that
Alexander and her crew really set out to make it look like a comic book.
Die-hard Punisher fans are likely to enjoy it. The only other thing it
has going for it is an insane level of violence and gore, which will no doubt
draw some viewers to it. There are a few moments where you think there's finally
a film that captures the Garth Ennis Punisher, but those are quickly
undermined by scenes where Punisher has his heart warmed by a little girl
(seriously) or anyone who isn't Ray Stevenson starts acting. The movie isn't a
complete failure, in that it at least offers a different take on the popular
character, but it still isn't a success, either. The third time is not a
charm.